Mzungue Give me Money.....

So, the past few days i have been spending a lot of time with our HIV Support Group. Let me give you the background of this group because i don't think i have yet. When i was here last year with Kara and Holly and we did the HIV testing day, (if you have read my blog before im sure you read that post) well, having the aftermath of trying to follow up with everyone that tested positive proved to be much harder than i had anticipated and we struggled a lot. So what holly, Kara and I decided was that we would create a support group. This was towards the end when we were leaving so we just got to have a lot of meetings about it and weren't able to really get the support group up and running.
Well, since holly stayed behind miracles have happened. We have officially begun our own support group called HIV Aids Support Network Namatala or for short HASNN. When i got here this year Holly have finally just registered the group and so we have been having meetings, we started a SACCO which is a savings and loan program so that the woman can start saving their money and then do micro-loans... its AMAZING!!!!! we had a meeting a few days ago where the members asked if they could sign their children up for a SACCO too because they want them to have a better future. It has been fabulous and i have loved it! we had another testing last saturday and it was great! we had 200 people come and there were 13 people that tested positive, but because we have the support group it is a good thing that they found out because now they can take care of themselves and make sure that they can continue to have a bright future!!!!! Its the greatest!!!!!

Some of the HASNN executive board members and Holly!

But i had a very humbling experience a few days ago. We had just had a board meeting where our HIV board was hounding us asking when everyone was going to get their "appreciation" which means paid. They have been working for free as volunteers but we promised them that we would give them an appreciation until we found proper funding so we have been trying to hash out how we would do it and how much is acceptable and affordable by us and i was feeling INCREDIBLY overwhelmed and frustrated because by the end of the meeting we had still not come to a conclusion but everyone was getting frustrated so we decided to call the meeting and meet again the next day. So as i was walking out of the building i run into this woman who in a very quiet voice says "excuse me, can i ask you a question?" Now, i was feeling really frustrated at the moment and said " if you going to ask me for money i don't have any" yeah i know, really really rude, but thats how frustrated i was feeling. Immediately after i said it she was like "No, No, No, nothing like that. I was just wondering if you could get me connected up with the woman that do the beading because i want to be a part of that"
My heart IMMEDIATELY melted. How could i be so rude. i feel stupid even thinking about it right now. So i said, 1000 Shillings will be coming back in the summer and i can bring them to you to get connected with them because i don't have the ability to do it myself. She was so grateful! So we continued to talk and she introduced her self to me as Katherine, and she thought my name was hard so i just told her to call me Cam. And then she began describing how to get to her house, so that i could take 1000 Shillings there in June.

Ado, One of the beading ladies kids, I heard her speak english the first time yesterday and it was SO cute and clear! love her!!!!!!!

It was such a humbling experience to remember that the people i work with really don't have much and they are trying to provide for their families. And this great woman was getting out of her comfortable zone for her family in asking a Muzunge to get her connected with the beading ladies. I could tell she was a little embarrassed and im sure it didn't help that i was abbrasive at the beginning but the love for her family gave her the courage to talk to me and it has reminded me to remember why i am here and how incredible these people are! no matter how long i am with them every day they seem to amaze and surprise me! I am going to make sure to listen to what each person has to say before i jump to conclusions!

Don't know what to title it.....

UPDATE!!!!

Saturday i was able to see Suzan, She is a woman that lives in namatala and she was pregnant the last time i came here. She had her baby a few weeks before i left. So i went back to visit her, she is so sweet, I happened upon her when she was making food so she insisted that i eat with her. I wasn't hungry at all, and i try not to eat food in the slum for health reasons :) But i did accept the offer of milk because i didn't want to offend her. so i had milk she thought it was funny that i wanted it cold. she boiled hers. Which i think is much safer, but i couldn't imagine drinking warm milk. i remember the first time i walked pass her house, she called out to me and asked if i would be her friend. This is not uncommon, so i was like, yes, that sounds great. And somehow we started to become friends and now she was one of the first people that i wanted see. it is funny how friendships are made. 

On Sunday I was able to meet everyone at the branch again. It was so much fun. We meet in a new building and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!!! i think its one the prettiest churches. and its very big. i love it!!!! Pius turned his papers in on Saturday, so that is exciting! it was testimony meeting so it was great to be able to hear them share their testimonies. Some of them are so simple. I love it! and then there is also the Ugandan that gets up and preaches about something that no one really understands but he is speaking very loudly and then walk off and no one has any idea what he said but he defiantly had some passion :)  

Health Clinic meetings... awesome. everything is falling into place. i will be going up on wednesday. Definately more to blog about once i come back because i will get to see Joseph and also see out health clinic up and running... pics to follow for sure!!!! we have a cool rotating schedule. 5 stations. its a teaching clinic as well as a health clinic. We want to make sure they are informed about what they are getting treated for! So at the last station they are surveyed about what treatments they were getting, and their understanding of what that means. If they don't understand then they go back through the stations to make sure that they understand their treatments. This makes me so excited. Heatlh Education i think is just as important as getting treatment. Super Excited. Also, some AWESOME EXCITING NEWS We got a grant for the health clinic that will cover our medications! This is a huge blessing. Now all that HELP has to cover is the salaries of the employees. YAHOO!!!!!!!!!

So another thing that made confirmed to me that i love this place. I was walking in Namatala on saturday, to go and see susan and as i was walking i passed a woman and she screamed, CAM i was so excited! they remembered me. She then proceeded to make sure that she brought me back to their community and i realized it was a place where we had put a water filter last year!!!!. But it was great! they still remembered me!!!! I LOVE UGANDA!!!!!!!!!